


Scuttlebutt

by Azzandra



Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Cal pov, Calderon is having a day, Gen, a year? Calderon is having a time for sure, circa Episode One, he is trying to run a serious ship here, it started as character musings but ended up kind of all over the place, or a week really, why does his crew want to adopt every stray they meet?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27252214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: No matter how many times the captain said 'stowaway' like it was a bad thing, they all still ended up wanting to keep her.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	Scuttlebutt

Circumstances once again conspired against him, though at least Calderon appreciated that it wasn't some betrayal this time, but the impersonal misfortune that the universe liked handing down to people once in a while just to keep them on their toes.

The fact were as followed:

June made a gut call. This wasn't usually bad, because June tended to listen to better angels than most, but it did occasionally lead to unexpected complications. Calderon couldn't very well bite June's head off for it, for a variety of reasons ranging from 'it would feel like kicking a puppy' to 'technically Calderon still owed June', and ending with 'what's done is done', because, fact the second:

They were already in space and fleeing Goldis. Turning back around just to drop off an unwanted passenger was not an option on several different levels, and their next stop was uncertain at that junction anyway. They were more focused on the fleeing part than actually picking a direction. So Calderon was all for sorting this problem off for later, when he'd have fewer pressing issues to deal with and more administrative minutia to muddle through. As long as the stowaway was unconscious and satisfactorily stowed away, Calderon could have the comfort of the issue being out of sight and out of mind. However, even this reprieve was complicated by the larger reality that:

Space was crushingly boring. It just was. It was vast expanses of complete nothing that you were forced to pass through in order to get to anyplace interesting or necessary. This was something Calderon knew intellectually before becoming a ship captain, but that he now understood viscerally since he began spending long stretches of time wrapped inside the same metal shell hurtling through space as five other people who had absolutely nobody else to interact with other than each other. 

The issue, of course, was not the fact that they didn't have anything to do. They all had their duties, and they all had their hobbies and entertainment. There were always things to do, when it came down to it. No, the issue was the sheer unchanging landscape of any given trip across the stars. It was the being stuck together. It was the fact that no matter how big the ship, how much space they could give each other, you couldn't just step out for a spell if being cooped up was starting to get to your head--not unless you intended to never return from your jaunt through the airlock.

It was a quality of boredom that they had all learned to cope with, of course; maybe Ryona was a bit too invested in the plantcare the longer a journey stretched, or June started having entire conversations with his lizard, or Aya and Bash kicked off another prank war, and maybe, just maybe, the long stretches of nothing happening allowed Calderon a bit too much time to stew in bitterness, but at least plotting revenge against Zovack was a productive endeavor. But in the long stretch of time and distance between destinations, there was still that boredom. And it unfortunately resulted in a hunger for novelty that was currently working against Calderon's wish to not have to think about the interloper. Because now that they all knew she was aboard, they were all curious about her.

Aya was the one to bring it up first, popping off the question with a bit too much glee for Calderon's liking.

"Calderon, you saw her when June brought her aboard, right?" she asked, and Calderon was jarred out of his train of thought. He looked up from the console display to entirely too many faces greedy for gossip.

"I didn't, and that's hardly a priority right now," he snapped.

His tone made absolutely no impression on the crew.

"Huh," Aya said, non-committal, but Ryona still frowned, sensing some intention behind Aya's tone.

"I'll request you don't disturb my patient just because you want to take a look at her," Ryona said.

"Wouldn't be a problem if we didn't have her on board to begin with," Calderon muttered, only to be summarily ignored.

"Didn't she have anything in her pockets?" Bash piped up. "ID? Comm link? Convenient name tag?" He was looking at June, but June shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, as much at a loss as anyone about the stowaway's identity.

"Nobody in the Gold District carries stuff in their pockets," Aya scoffed. "They don't like to jingle when they walk."

"There was something," June said.

This was like throwing a chunk of meat in a pit of hungry tigers, because they were all suddenly craning their necks to see what he meant. Calderon didn't approve, or want to participate in this ridiculous conversation, but as captain it was his responsibility to keep apprised of any new development, so he was forced to turn in his seat and lean over as much as dignity allowed.

The small, spherical object in June's hand was decorated intricately--looked expensive even--but Calderon couldn't discern its function.

"What is it?" Aya asked.

Bash, far less shy about it, picked up the object from June's hand and turned it over to get a better look. His eye turned red as he peered at it intently.

"Huh," he said as he looked at it. "Some kind of mechanism inside."

Calderon felt a chill of apprehension. "It's not some... new-fangled spy thingy, is it?" he asked. 

Off to the side, Damon snorted loudly. He hadn't said a thing so far, but Calderon took that less as solidarity with his own misgivings, and more like watching and waiting to see what would come from the situation. In many ways, this worried Calderon worse than any of the other crew's behavior; it was bad enough that Damon banged on about wanting a cat, Calderon wouldn't know how to react if he suddenly set his mind on keeping a stowaway.

The eye flickered from red back to yellow as Bash gave Calderon a deadpan stare.

"...No," he deadpanned. "It's probably not a--" Sarcastic finger-quotes, "'new-fangled spy thingy'. It doesn't look like there's anything inside capable of transmitting a signal."

"Let me see," Aya said, even as she'd already swiped the small shiny sphere from Bash.

"Maybe you should be careful with that," June remarked. "Looks delicate."

"Looks expensive," Damon put in, and now they all looked at the sphere just to tally up how much the gems on it might be worth.

"Kitalphanite?" Ryona voiced what they were all thinking. There was a general murmur of agreement as they mentally put together what kind of person could be found in the Gold District with something so expensive in their possession.

Aya changed her hold on the object, clasping it more gently with the tip of her fingers, but she didn't completely rein in her curiosity. "There has to be some way to open it, right?"

She and Bash immediately exchanged the most devious set of grins, and Calderon had to chase them all off to their posts soon enough, because there was only so much lollygagging he could tolerate on his bridge. June went to check on the stowaway--with no reprimand from Ryona, who apparently trusted him not to be as much of a bother towards the convalescent as Aya.

* * *

It only got so much worse after she woke up.

Because if things went Calderon's way even once--once!--then what would have happened would have been that the stowaway woke up, noticed she'd been inadvertently shanghaied, thrown a tantrum like only the Goldian elite could, and demanded to be returned home to what were undoubtedly her rich and noble parents. He would then have dropped her off at their next stop, and she could holo-message her parents to send her money for the ride back like a lot of Goldian tourists often had to do after being robbed blind, and he and the crew could wash their hands of her and go on her merry way. She'd be fine. Better than she started off, considering she hadn't bled out from a head wound on the streets of Silta Vie during the coup.

But the moment she woke, June slunk onto the bridge to tell him that she couldn't remember a damn thing about her life--barely even her own name--and that she was still a bit out of it when he dropped her off at the infirmary, but seemed otherwise sweet and a bit clueless. Calderon did not like the sound of that at all.

Bad enough that she ended up on his ship, but now she didn't even have the decency to be an obnoxious brat that he could boot without protest from the crew? Oh, no. No, no, he knew this lot. He had to drop her off at the next stop before they all became emotionally invested. He didn't have the time or mental space for another complication, and some fumbling amnesiac on his ship was far past entertainment and speeding into unwanted distraction. They couldn't go after Zovack with dead weight hanging around their necks.

He didn't like the glint that June had in his eye when he arrived on the bridge, either, because last time Calderon had seen June with that softly besotted look on his face, it had resulted in a lizard being brought aboard. But a stowaway was a harder sell than a pet lizard. June was going to have to live with the disappointment, in this case.

Calderon put the matter firmly aside as he dealt with the more pressing issues before hi,. He paced up and down the bridge, going in circles just like this conversation was: repairs to be made, supplies to be acquired, a pressing need for money that meant he was also tallying how long they could go before they had to pick up another bounty contract, Bash coming to tell him about a hole in his damn ship, and now another mouth to feed. And Zovack, always Zovack, a step ahead, and at the end of a long chase that was eating up their resources as quickly as they could gather any. With a crown on his head, Zovack seemed ever-present, his reach extending across the system. And Calderon itched for nothing but to rush towards him, but he had every crew member reminding him of a different problem, and here Calderon had to consolidate four different solutions to four different problems into one course of action.

Calderon didn't know when the stowaway made her way to the bridge. Damon had been loitering by the door alone when the pacing started, waiting for the debate to wind down as much as for Calderon to run out of steam. For as much as Damon liked antagonizing, he always had a sharp sense for when Calderon was already too keyed up to push any further; and as much as he liked to poke at Calderon on a personal basis, as a second-in-command he could execute on the captain's instructions with a deftness that Calderon had come to rely on.

But to Calderon's alarm, sometime during the thunderous pacing, Damon had found someone else to toy with: he had the stowaway hemmed in against the bulkhead, watching her squirm, red-faced and wide-eyed. This was hardly surprising behavior for Damon, but the way he gave her his complete attention was a bit too gleefully menacing, in Calderon's assessment. A bit too much fun that Damon was having, and Calderon knew his second-in-command well enough to have learned that the man could get as soppy over strays as June, and be ten times as insufferable about it. So Calderon rushed over to nip this in the bud.

"Reznor!" he snapped as he walked up to them.

Calderon could sense Damon's eye-roll, could see in the tilt of his head the smirk, but it was the way he winked at the stowaway before pulling away that had Calderon bristling. 

Great. Damon, the absolute bastard, was already in too deep.

* * *

Calderon was mistaken.

They were all in too deep.

If Calderon was hoping that getting them all together for a proper conversation about their next course of action was going to remain focused on Zovack, his hope was dashed by how quickly the subject was railroaded by talks of the stowaway. Every time. Every single time.

Calderon didn't know why he expected differently. Even he had somehow gotten caught in the stowaway's inexplicable charm radius, considering he'd let himself get talked into letting her stay. And even the little amount of moral credit he might claim for not abandoning the defenseless amnesiac in Teranium, he absolutely refused: this was not a selfless choice on his part. He definitely got talked into it. If there was a record, he would have wanted it recorded that he damn well knew letting her stick around was the right thing, but he still only did it under protest.

But then, it'd been too late since the moment they left Goldis with her on board.

And now, the ship's entire atmosphere during the trip to Teranium was something apart from what he expected. Goldis had been a crushing failure for them, though more for Calderon in particular, and the entire system was now under the power of a bloodthirsty despot. Yet, the pall of anxiety and uncertainty that Calderon had expected to fall over the ship never quite took. They were distracted by the newcomer on board, part guest and part mystery (and in Calderon's opinion, all trespasser, not that anyone seemed to agree with him), and spent a great deal of time speculating and trading tidbits of gossip.

Much to Calderon's exasperation, every single move the stowaway made on his ship somehow came to his knowledge--if not attention--by way of scuttlebutt, to the point that he wondered if she knew or would have objected to the level of detail the crew thought to share about her. It settled uncomfortably in his gut somehow; Gold District brat, he wanted to continue thinking, except for how a few things didn't add up quite right.

Ryona reported excellent health, albeit some remaining damage from her concussion. This fit with the assumptions they were already making about her upbringing. And Aya pointed out the odd juxtaposition of a naturally curious mind and a complete unfamiliarity with so many mundane aspects of the world. That pointed to sheltered, which was to be expected.

There were plenty of wealthy families in Goldaris which had children out of obligation and then warehoused them, as soon as age allowed, in one of the many prestigious boarding schools the planet boasted. Calderon had never been one of those children; his mothers had hired tutors for his education, and they had always taken a personal interest in him and never sent him off to live with strangers. But plenty of other affluent parents did not take quite such a warm view of their offspring.

Calderon could always recognize the boarding school alumni, because they usually came in two stripes: the first being the monstrously unempathetic and aloof, who suffered from the kind of soul-deep ennui that only being steeped in privilege but devoid of parental affection in their formative years could produce, and the second being the far gentler but also far more brittle breed who reacted to any show of authority with instinctual obedience, because that was how they had been taught to act by the inflexible adults who'd raised them in their parents' stead.

The stowaway didn't quite fit. There was something in her that responded to authority--she yes-sirred him like a first day recruit--but past the initial reflex there was also a tendency to argue and backtalk. And her face hid nothing. There was no dour mask that girls tended to learn in fancy finishing schools, that stiff polite expression of neutrality and a blistering cold gaze that made Calderon feel like they were picturing poking needles through him. No, the stowaway's emotions would reel across her face as obvious as though they were written on a ten-foot high neon marquee.

It amused Damon terribly, because if even Calderon could guess so much of what was going through her eyes, then someone like Damon, who could divine the fine striations of someone's soul from as little as the twitch of an eyelid, had as clear a look to the inside of her head as though every thought were written on her forehead.

"Chronic overthinker," Damon had snorted, his tone making it sound like a gripe, but his lopsided grin making it look otherwise. 

"I have a hard time believing she thinks before she opens her mouth," Calderon replied.

This was during one of their late night bitching sessions--Damon's name for them, not Calderon's, though his sentiment was the same. Whenever they needed to touch base about the run of the ship, they ensconced themselves in some empty corner, lest the crew run across them and be shocked by the scandalous sight of the captain and his second talking things over like agreeable adults. 

That night, alone in Calderon's room, they were sharing half a bottle of terrible alcohol Calderon couldn't remember obtaining; it'd been stashed in some drawer for the past year or so. Maybe it had come with the ship. He rolled his glass to see the clear liquid swish around. Damon drank his like a shot, and contemplated his empty glass, not reaching for the bottle any more than Calderon offered to pour another. The drink was a pretext; something to do with their hands, something to look at other than each other.

"Watch her eyes sometime," Damon replied, voice softened along the edges by his Cursan accent. "Every time they dart around, it's 'cause she's got some question. But she drops 'em one by one, jumps to the question she's burning to ask the most, and then drops that one to ask something else she thinks is gonna get answered instead."

"You figure all that out just by watching her eyes?" Calderon asked. It was not disbelief, really. But he wondered what Damon would unravel from the mind of someone who didn't even remember anything.

Damon scoffed softly. "What, like it's hard?"

Calderon huffed through his nose. It was a jab. If it was that easy, Calderon wouldn't be relying on him for it. If it was that easy, Calderon wouldn't have ended up betrayed by the people he trusted most.

"That expensive trinket of hers, it's a music box," Damon said, with the abruptness of someone changing the subject. But this felt related. "Soon as it was in her hand, she just--" Damon made a gesture with his hand, fist closing and opening to demonstrate. "Popped it right open. Then she cried."

The information settled in Calderon's gut uncomfortably, like some live squirming thing.

"Did she remember something?" he asked.

"Nah. But she cried," Damon reiterated.

Dammit. This was what Calderon hadn't wanted: the burgeoning conviction that she'd be better off on his ship than whatever place she came from.

He brought his fingers to the bridge of his nose, squeezed against the pounding headache that he could distantly feel forming. As pissed off as he was feeling about the rest of the crew falling for it, now he wasn't any better, because he couldn't send her back. He didn't want to send her back.

"Fine," Calderon sighed sharply through his teeth. "Alright. What are we going to do with her, then?"

Damon was contemplating his empty glass. "What're 'we' gonna do...?" he asked, smirking even as it seemed he was thinking of nothing more but how the glass caught the light.

"We can't have freeloaders, especially at a time like this," Calderon said. He ignored the growing smirk on Damon's face. "Like it or not, she's our responsibility--yours and mine, Damon, as captain and second-in-command."

"Sure," Damon rolled his shoulders in a slow shrug. "We could even ask her. As a welcome aboard gift."

"We could," Calderon agreed, and sidestepped the entire remark about welcoming her aboard.

He poured himself another drink. He was going to get through this entire awful bottle before the night was through.


End file.
